GUILTY: Children, 4 and 7, left to be fed at school by mum who admits abandoning them to score drugs

A seven-year-old girl told police how she and her younger brother were left home alone by their mother.

They would be told not to open the door to their house to anyone when their 31-year-old mother abandoned them.

They were left without any proper food and in the company of a bulldog as the mother sometimes went into Blackpool to buy drugs and sometimes stay out overnight.

The mother pleaded guilty to child neglect of the seven and four-year-olds by abandonment at Blackpool Magistrates.

She cannot be indentified for legal reasons.

The justices sent her for sentence at Preston Crown Court saying it was a pattern of similar incidents which culminated in the woman’s arrest.

Jim Mowbray, prosecuting, said a neighbour alerted police when she realised the children had been left alone in the property on the Fylde coast for a number of hours in the evening of April 14 last year.

Their mother had earlier asked the neighbour if she had any ”whizz” (amphetamine) and when she was told not, decided to get some from North Shore.

“When police arrived they were let in by the seven-year-old. The officer found glass on the floor from a broken photo frame, the toilet was blocked and they children were in the house with the dog,” said Mr Mowbray.

“When the mother finally returned the officer was surprised at her lack of reaction to the situation.”

The neighbour who had raised the alarm said she was often asked to look after the children. She told officers that she had been in the mother‘s house and rarely saw any food.

She had heard them crying and shouting through the wall that night.

In an interview with police the older child said: “We were told not to answer the door and had to put ourselves to bed when she left us alone.”

The girl added: “Sometimes it happens five times a week. The teachers give us food when we get to school.”

Leisa Splaine, defending, said: “These are serious circumstances and she accepts she fell way short of her parental duties. She had been a victim of domestic violence and harassment herself from a former partner.”

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